


Giant Leaps and Baby Steps

by Aujourdhui_est_Parfait



Series: Denial is not just a river in Egypt [2]
Category: The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:13:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24551383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aujourdhui_est_Parfait/pseuds/Aujourdhui_est_Parfait
Summary: Mark and Chris' relationship finally develops.
Relationships: Chris Beck/Mark Watney
Series: Denial is not just a river in Egypt [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774477
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	1. In my arms

**Author's Note:**

> Happy to finish, hope you enjoy.  
> (I was busy having 2 successful babies in between.)  
> 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First date time!

_Act casual, act casual, ACT CASUAL._ Mark twisted his lips, imitating a fish, to prevent himself from saying it out loud. He took a deep breath and knocked on door 208. 

Chris opened the door, his eyed widening and beaming with recognition.

“Hi. You up to anything?” Mark asked, somehow successfully casual. He immediately shifted his efforts to now hiding his smugness at successfully hiding his extreme excitement.

“Not at all. Please come in,” Chris said, smiling widely. Though beyond himself with happiness, he couldn’t help eyeing the hallway to check for other people, whom he thankfully didn’t see. 

As Mark entered the narrow section of the hotel room, he whispered “phones” and tapped pointedly towards the off button on his device, before taking off his coat. 

“It’s more conspicuous if we both suddenly turn them off. Just turn it to silent and leave it in your pocket here. I’ve already switched mine off so I can ‘sleep better’,” Chris whispered back. He walked further into the room, turned around to face Mark and said “Welcome,” spreading his arms out across the room.

Mark’s gaze followed his hands to see the bed, covered with strewn rose petals. “How did you…” he stared, gesturing open mouthed. “You must have killed over a dozen roses for this. How did you know I would come here?”

“I didn’t. So it’s more like six dozen. I kind of guessed a couple times before, when it might be possibly likely for you to show up, and tonight you did,” Chris said, raising his eyebrows. 

Mark stood unable to speak, still calculating how many flowers had been wasted and simultaneously in awe of his strategy.

“But wait, there’s more,” Chris continued. He walked to the desk where he pulled something out of his travel bag. He set a small rectangular device on the desk and pressed a few buttons until music started to play. 

Mark squinted at it. “Wow. I haven’t seen those since…ever. What is that? It looks old,” Mark said. This was good, now they had a physical thing to talk about. This meant he could stop worrying about forgetting the conversation starters he had come up with. Several of them were not about plants even. 

Chris pointed to the device and formally declared, “This… Is a _walk… man_.”

“Walk… _man_ …With that name, I would expect a little robot, but it’s not even shaped like a man?” Mark asked. “Does it even walk?” he added, grinning and sitting down among the petals.  
Chris sat down beside him. “It’s not supposed to- you’re supposed to listen to it while you walk. You’re the walking man. As opposed to something stuck to an outlet. It works on batteries”. 

“You went all out huh,” Mark said, putting his hand on Chris’ shoulder. 

Chris turned to face him and slid a hand around his waist. “I made you a mix tape,” rather proud. 

Mark’s eyelids extended to their furthest possible width. “Tape? _Cassette_ tape? That’s practically proposing. Does this mean you want to go steady with me?” he asked in a mocking voice. 

Being completely used to and comfortable with Mark’s shenanigans, Chris ignored him. “Just listen to it more later. For now, no more joking,” he said, and moved in to cup Mark’s face for a kiss.

Mark pulled away however and laid back on the bed. “Make me,” he laughed.

“Alright,” Chris grinned. He swung his leg over Mark to straddle him. Just then the sound of heavy breathing came from the entrance of the room. Chris turned his head to face the door and furrowed his brows, trying to make out where he recognized the sound from. “Is that… _Darth Vader?_ ” 

“Lewis,” Mark grimaced. He sighed, got out from under Chris and walked towards his coat. “I can’t believe this is the second time the Commander interrupts us.” He looked at his phone. “I gotta take this,” he said, and kept sighing as he left the room. 

Chris also sighed and laid back among the rose petals, alone, again. He tried not to get too carried away, thinking about what he would like to do when Mark returned, as he had no clue what the call could be about, and for all he knew, there was some kind of emergency. He considered stopping the tape, but then again, he could always do that if the situation would call for it. He decided it was better to try to keep the mood and relax somehow. 

Luckily, Mark knocked on the door again rather quickly and Chris let him back in. “Everything’s fine,” Mark said, placing his phone away as before. “I just have to do something tomorrow that I don’t want to talk about tonight. Meeting people,” he added. 

“Copy that,” Chris grinned, and moved closer to kiss him, but Mark lodged a finger in between the two of them. 

“I do need to tell you this. Just so you know, I don’t just want to have sex. I mean of course that would be great, but I also want to do other couple’s stuff. Inside. Privately,” Mark said, looking his most serious with the final addition.

Chris huffed. “What, like bake cookies and watch movies?” he retorted. He could barely wait for the talking part to be over. 

“Yes, exactly!” Mark smiled and felt his eyes get the slightest bit more watery. 

“Next time,” Chris said, and began opening the buttons on Mark’s shirt. 

“Oh, you’d like to have a second date?” Mark asked, mockingly again. He grinned and made a start at pulling off Chris’ shirt.

“Let’s have this one first,” Chris said, and Mark finally allowed Chris to shut him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The importance of doors makes a reappearance. And playlists: [Playlist for this chapter](https://8tracks.com/aresiii/in-my-arms)


	2. Fight for this love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's good to share your fears and future plans with each other.

Off in a hotel called Town Place Suites, near the Johnson Space Center in Houston, a single room was booked for one guest, who was in the midst of violating the occupancy codes. 

“Oh wow,” Mark sighed, lying back on the bed. Without thinking he followed it with “I love you.” Immediately and with full force the fact that he hadn’t said that before dawned on him. “Wait… ah… I…” he stammered, getting up and staring at Chris. _Was this too much? Is he going to freak out? Break up with me? Worse, whatever that may be?_

Chris was slightly amused by Mark’s spooked face. “It’s okay. It doesn’t count if it’s during sex,” he chuckled, and kissed him near his ear. 

Mark quickly recovered from his panic with his favorite coping mechanism of cheeky humor. “Oh, this is still _during?_ I was kind of fully satisfied by now, but if you want to make it _during_ …” 

“Alright, alright, maybe… I could be bribed.” Chris smiled and slowly blinked his eyes at Mark.

As Mark stared at his face, his expression changed from excited to pained. He took a deep breath and rolled himself back on the bed. “My therapist proposed we should talk about our fears, so we understand each other better and connect on a deeper emotional level,” he spoke formally as if reading a text out loud in front of a classroom. 

Chris frowned and tried to catch Mark’s gaze, which was pointed at the ceiling. “After-sex relational analysis? Wow, that sounds like way more fun than baking cookies.”

“Do you see any flour or ovens around? We gotta make do with what we got. Which is a dash of existential crises and whatnot. That could be fun, right?” Mark half turned to face him again.

“Right. Fears it is. Who goes first?” Chris asked.

“Seeing how this is my idea… Here we go,” Mark said. “I’m afraid I’ll push you away if I am honest about how strongly I feel about you.”

“That’s no secret. And you _won’t_. I’m just worried you’ll expect the same level of sharing feelings from me and I’m still… not terribly comfortable just with my own feelings I guess.” Chris looked away.

Mark noticed Chris was looking at the hotel door. “Yeah, love is scary,” Mark replied mockingly.

“Fuck you, it absolutely is,” Chris said agitated. “Even if you weren’t Conqueror of Mars. It’s… a pretty big deal.” 

“So you like me ‘a pretty big deal’? That’s… awesome….” Mark grinned. 

“Don’t make me quantify stuff like that, it’s not scientific,” Chris said, and stared at the ceiling. 

“It’s love, it’s not supposed to be scientific.” Mark could tell Chris was still thinking, but he was too eager for an answer. “So… anything for you?”

Chris hummed back questioningly. 

“Any fear you would like to share with me?” Mark asked.

“How about irrational fears?” Chris countered.

Mark put his arms under his head. “Oh I love those! I have tons of those. Waking up thinking I’m still on Mars. Getting kind of afraid to go to sleep by myself knowing I might wake up screaming, that’s great. Highlight of my week.” 

“You said that was getting less,” Chris said sternly. He rolled over to his side and began to run his fingers through Mark’s hair. 

“It was. And then it was getting a bit more again. It’s just… it is what it is,” Mark said, catching Chris’ hand.

Chris sighed and laid back again. “Well for nightmares, I had a new one. This time, I open up your helmet and instead of nothing or your bloody corpse, there’s a black void there, turning into a black hole, sucking everything in existence into it until there’s nothing left.”

This time Mark rolled over on his side to face Chris. “So I’m gone and your entire universe is gone, wow. Is that symbolism?” 

Chris rolled his eyes. “…I don’t know what you are referring to,” he muttered. 

“Sure,” Mark smiled. He could never hear enough of how Chris felt about him. 

Chris folded his arms and looked straight at Mark. “Here goes. Irrational fear. I’m afraid you’re gonna one day decide you don’t like me and leave.”

Mark snorted. “Wait, why?”

Chris stretched out his arms in the air. “Irrational, I just said that. There is no reason.” He folded his arms on top of his head. 

Mark however was not convinced it was all that irrational. “So… like Beth did?”

“We had many extremely good reasons to break up, you know that. Another one is that maybe, even though everything is fine right now, maybe we’ll also end up arguing, shouting, fighting…punching….”

“Nah, I would never do that. And I wouldn’t let you,” Mark added, running his fingers along Chris’s arm. 

“That’s what I thought with me and Beth,” Chris said, looking sadly in Mark’s eyes. 

“You’ll just have to trust me. I promise not to un-like you, and to not ever hurt you, unless you beg me for it of course,” Mark added with a seductive grin. He suddenly sighed and sat up in bed. “There is one more irrational fear I want to share.” He waited for Chris to sit up as well before starting. “I’m afraid you’ll get in an accident. You could get hit by a car or whatever. And you get a concussion in such a way that you forget the past few weeks. You forget all about us. And I have no fucking thing to prove to you everything that happened between us. No single piece of evidence that we in fact are meeting up secretly and opening our hearts and souls to each other. Nothing. So then maybe you’ll just laugh at me and say I’m joking and I have to somehow convince you all over again which may or may not work, but in any case, what we have now is then lost forever.” 

Chris looked somewhat concerned. “Not sure that’s 100% irrational. There is a remote chance a thing like that could happen.” 

Mark dropped his arms on the bed. “Oh, that really makes me feel so much better! But honestly, it would be even worse if _I_ got hit by a car that way.” 

“How so?” Chris asked, frowning.

“I mean if you’d forget about us, I’ll be alright eventually, I’ll get over it and work on a plan to win you back again. I’m determined. But you, you’d just be miserable and wallow won’t you?” Mark asked.

From the way Mark was grinning, Chris could tell he was giving his fears the bare amount of seriousness they were worth, and it was alright to be lighthearted about it. “You have such faith in my capabilities!” Chris exclaimed, and launched a tickling spree which they both enjoyed and neither cared to win, interlaced with kisses and cried for mercy. 

After a bit Chris sat back on the bed, still grinning. “You may be right though. That would be a catastrophe. Luckily I’ve been talking with my therapist a lot and I’m almost at the point where I want to first tell the crew.” 

Mark’s eyes grew wide as he immediately sat up. “What?! You wanna tell them? _First…?!_ You want to tell _more_ people?” 

Chris held up his hands in an attempt to slow Mark down. “Let me tell you how I want to go about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist for this chapter](https://8tracks.com/aresiii/fight-for-this-love)


	3. All I want for Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're stuck driving in a car.

Chris was sitting behind the steering wheel, driving on a long straight road with surprisingly little traffic, getting distracted by the Christmas songs on the radio and glancing sideways whenever the lyrics would seem to fit how he felt about Mark, who was most often waiting for his look and ready to wink back at him. They had run out of things to talk about, but not of things to do to each other, only their present environment and schedule kept them from acting out their desires. 

Mark finally snapped his fingers and pointed in the air as he remembered something new to talk about. “I finished my poem,” he declared. 

“That one you got stuck on earlier?” Chris hoped he didn’t sound too unknowledgeable or uninterested, it was just tricky to keep track of the road just in case in combination with Mark’s deeper conversations in a meaningful way.

“Yes. I'm proud of it too. It's stupid. But I wanna share it with you anyway,” Mark said, drumming on the dashboard.

Chris turned down the volume of the radio. “Go ahead. I want to hear it.”

“Alright here goes.” Mark took a deep breath.   
_“Roses are red.  
Mars is red.  
Fuck you Mars,  
I'm not dead.”_

“That’s nice-” Chris started.

“Heeeeeell Yeeeeeeeeeeeah!” Mark began to roar.

“That's part of it too? Wow, still going on,” Chris said and blinked slowly as if he could block out the sound reaching his ears by closing his eyes. 

Mark finally finished yelling. “It's progress, April says,” he added.

“It sounds like progress,” Chris replied. “Those are emotions. And it’s good to voice them and not… do the whole… negative coping methods and destroy yourself or others.”

“Or NASA’s image, yeah I’m on it, this is prime healing.” Mark looked out the side window once more as Chris turned up the volume again. “You’re still okay driving?” he asked him. 

“Yup, still good to go,” Chris replied. They still had a couple of hours to go, and being together in close quarters was still quite familiar to them both, despite the changes in their relationship. 

Mark came up with a second topic to talk about, though not entirely without risk. His boredom eventually won out. “Hey, do you realize handling all these secrets would be so much easier if you would move in with me?”

Even though they were driving on a flat road it suddenly felt to Chris like he was plummeting straight towards Earth through the sky. “You did not. Just ask me. _That._ This is wholly inappropriate. We _just_ asked your parents to think about going public, we still haven’t asked my dad. That is way… off schedule,” Chris said, shooting an angry glance sideways. 

“How many more steps are there?” Mark asked, trying not to sound too derisive.

“Not many. But moving in, whoah… that’s not dating anymore. That’s living together. _All_ the time,” Chris said. He shook his head. 

Mark shrugged. “It’s a big house. You could spend the entire day in another room and I’d still feel less lonely.” He drummed his fingers on the car door in agitation.

“Oh, I’m sure that would be believable. ‘Chris only moved in cause I’m so lonely in my big house, he’s a huge _friend_ ’. Uhuh.” Chris shook his head again, still dividing his attention to what little traffic there was. 

“Anything you want,” Mark said sweetly. He had intended to ask Chris in a more serious manner much later, but now at least he had some idea of how Chris felt about it. 

“Alright, how about you not talking about that until after we’ve gone public?” Chris suggested. 

Mark pouted. 

“You did say ‘anything’,” Chris reminded him. 

Mark tried to fold his arms behind his head while not hitting the car roof. “I did,” he conceded. “You’re my little potato.” 

Chris pointed at him. “That’s it! You hate things about me so you call me potato!”

Mark tried to diffuse the situation, mostly because he thought it safer if Chris kept both hands on the wheel, and he hadn’t meant to pick a fight over their different needs. “But it’s because I can’t live without you…?”

“Fine. Call me potato,” Chris said, waving with his hand. “But I’ve seen you freak out about them enough to find it impossible to believe it’s 100% affectionate.” 

“For you it is. I want to re-own that word,” Mark said proudly. 

Chris abruptly turned his head to face Mark and side-eyed him. “You want to _own_ me?” He immediately looked back at the road. 

“I definitely did not say that,” Mark said. There was really only one way he could turn this back around. 

“Mmhmm. So what _do_ you mean?” Chris was focused on another car overtaking them. 

Mark waited it out so he could have more of Chris’ attention. “Well, you know what I used to say,” he smiled. 

“You've said a lot of things, help me out here,” Chris said, glancing over briefly. 

“ _Fuck potatoes_ ,” Mark said, grinning widely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist for this chapter](https://8tracks.com/aresiii/christmas-time)


	4. Quit playing games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to pack up and move on.

Chris put down a pile of shirts still on hangers and picked up his buzzing phone. “Yeah?” he said, absentmindedly, still thinking about where he had actually wanted to put the clothes.

Mark’s voice came rattling with his full insane intensity, which Chris was luckily used to. “So on a scale of they stopped selling the original banana flavored candies, to your mom sent you to live with your dad when you were a kid and had a family of her own, to you went to Mars twice as much as I did, how much are you over Beth?”

Chris sighed. He had absolutely no time for this now, as much as he tended to enjoyed Mark’s excitement over anything. “You know, this conversation would work so much better if it wasn’t over the phone. Or when I’m on a tight schedule.” 

Mark on the other hand was not the least deterred. “Ha, yeah, tell me about it. In fact, _tell_ me about it. Tell me _all_ the little things you would do to me, where you would touch-“

Chris was already sighing and about to hang up. “Bye Mark.” He was sure Mark had felt him rolling his eyes through the phone. 

“Wait! I have a surprise,” Mark said. 

“Alright,” Chris said, not entirely convinced but patiently delaying ending the conversation. “What is it?”

Mark let out his breath. “I lied, there’s no surprise. I just want to hear your voice. And maybe distract you in a nice way. And I wanted to tell you, you’ll do fine. Your both adults, you can work this out normally. As awkward friends. And hey, maybe she won’t even show up, right?”

Chris desperately hoped Mark was going to be right about this, but within 5 minutes after Mark’s appealing and wishful thinking had ended, Chris’ reminiscing was interrupted by the doorbell. He went over to open the door and saw Beth standing in the hallway with flattened boxes and a small cart. 

“Hi. Thanks for coming over to help me out with this,” Chris said. 

“Of course. Besides, now I get to take my stuff back that you manage to keep forgetting to bring. Can I come in?” Beth said, pushing the cart towards the door. 

“Be my guest,” Chris said, holding the door open for her. “Like I said, it would help if you’d let me know what stuff specifically you’re looking for.”

“Oh, cause it’s soooo hard to distinguish from all the other stuff left behind by your other countless lovers?” Beth asked. Chris only took a deep breath. “What, no joking?” she added, pouting. 

“I’m just stressed about moving. Etcetera,” Chris said, vaguely motioning with his hand. 

Beth pointedly set down the cart and placed her hand on the boxes. “You _do_ really want to move in with him, right?” Beth asked.

“Of course! Who wouldn’t want the luxury of not just two, but three whole couches!” He could tell from her face he hadn’t sounded like he was joking. “No, in all seriousness, it’s going to be good. It’s much more practical than living apart,” he added. 

“Oh, ‘practical’? That’s romantic,” Beth snorted. She stared to look around the apartment for the starting point for her hunt. 

“No really, it’s not too soon or anything. It’s just… for once I’d like to be the first at something. He’s always first. It’s like I’m just following him around all the time.” 

Beth looked Chris straight in the eyes. “What, are you scared you’re gonna move in the house and he’s gonna propose?” She laughed, and started mumbling to herself. “That would be so funny. Ah _there_ it is,” she said, and walked to a cupboard to take a photo off the top. 

_Fuck._

Chris felt his heart drop into is stomach. Nothing about the idea of Mark proposing to him was appealing, mostly because he had not prepared for the possibility of it At All. He ran his hand through his hair and started thinking out loud as well. “He could do that. He could definitely do that. That is _not_ funny.” Chris shook his head, looked at his half packed apartment and felt so unready for the wild possibility, becoming less wild every second he thought about it, that Mark could propose, that he seriously considered whether to start unpacking again. He could probably extend the lease if he would call the agency today. Was that really what he wanted to do though?

Beth was ignoring him and had begun rummaging through cabinets and shelves in the bathroom, occasionally picking out an item. “At least you get to keep all your stuff. I’ll probably have to dump my things at my parents,” she called out to him.

Glad for the change of topic, he decided to try and tease Beth. “What do you mean, you don’t have enough space in your huge ass mansion for this one box?”

“Two. At least,” Beth added, looking pointedly at her growing collection. 

“Two…” Chris was starting to count how many boxes he would have to unpack and which he could leave as is, just in case he decided to change his plans.

“He’ll probably have his interior decorator say it doesn’t match the drapes this season,” Beth said, checking between the last books on a shelf and then opening up a box with packed books. 

“Now _that_ is romantic,” Chris threw back. 

“It’s his job!” Beth shot back. “You know as a curator he has his own interior photographed for interviews in magazines and whatnot. Most of my stuff is not up to picture standard, but I’d still like to put it somewhere out of sight and have it somewhere accessible. Keeping up appearances is the same drill as with NASA, only he has to show he has just as keen an eye for his living space as he has for his professional work.” She dropped four books into an almost full box. 

Chris was already exhausted to the level where he didn’t register he had begun to copy Beth and was packing his own things again. He wasn’t thinking ahead about his responses either. “Yeah, yeah, and you’re the most stunning live work of art he ever laid his eyes on, I get it. What?”

Beth stopped collecting items and went over to Chris, staring at him. “Could it be you still miss me?”

Chris closed his eyes and looked away. “No.” For a moment he considered Mark and Beth secretly exchanging notes on how to tease him, but he knew he had instigated this himself and decided to answer honestly. “I miss what we had, before. I’m sad we couldn’t fix it. But I’m happy the way things turned out for both of us. I can be both happy and sad about the same thing. It’s not weird.” What was weird, he finally realized, was what he was doing when he seriously needed to reconsider his plans. 

“Not weird at all. Let’s continue packing,” Beth said, and started to move toward the kitchen.

Chris waved her away. “You do your packing. I need to think something over.” He went back into his bedroom to lie down on the bed. 

“You’re serious?” Beth asked, following him into the room. “Fine, but remember, this is your one day off,” she said, waving her finger at him. “If you’re ever going to pack, it’s today or in another two months. When this goes sour you better tell everyone I did nothing but encourage you to move on time.” She opened the closet and went through the piles of clothes, grabbing some. 

Chris frowned at her mentioning ‘when’. He couldn’t imagine a ‘when’. Things were going perfect, exactly the way he wanted, except that one tiny detail. 

“Ugh. I am _not_ going through your dirty laundry,” Beth said as she stomped her foot. “Where’s my Queen shirt?”

Chris gasped and stared wide eyed at Beth, realizing how she would kill both him and the person wearing it, and how she was blocking his only path of escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist for this chapter](https://8tracks.com/aresiii/quit-playing-games)


	5. About you now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some doors should close. Fast.

The way Chris saw it, there was only one way out of his dilemma. There was absolutely no way he was going to have the future public ‘Mark and Chris story’ continue with Mark proposing to him after all the initiative Mark had already taken. The more Chris thought about it, the more he realized he was committed to his decision. So he made a final stop, after having his apartment packed up into a van and sending it off to its destination, to get the one thing to solve all his problems. 

They spent the better part of the afternoon moving boxes in Mark’s house, which Chris suspected more and more Mark had originally selected to be able to fit all of Chris’ belongings along with his own. 

“There, now it feels like you’re actually living here,” Mark said, shoving a box round the corner of a wall with his foot. 

Chris exhaled and checked if he was looking decent in the entrance way mirror while Mark scanned the rooms. “There’s one box we haven’t opened yet,” Chris said. 

“No, I just put those last kitchen boxes on the counter, we can open them later. We don’t have to do everything in one day.” Mark started walking over to Chris. 

“I got another one here,” Chris said, pulling a tiny box out of his back pocket and quickly kneeling to the ground before Mark could reach him. 

“What are you doing? Are you okay? What… Holy fuck,” Mark said as it dawned on him what was happening. 

Chris opened the box and Mark could see a star shaped jewel embedded on a silver ring. “Mark Watney, will you be my fiance?” Chris asked, looking up at Mark and already knowing the answer. 

“YES” Mark yelled. He put his hands to his head and dropped them again, unsure what to do for a moment. Chris got up and Mark’s instincts told him to embrace Chris, which left them stumbling to the ground, still hugging. “I want you so much right now,” Mark whispered in Chris’ ear. 

Chris laughed and looked at the painfully bare ground. “Right here? Now?”

“This house needs to be blessed,” Mark said while smothering Chris with kisses, already going downwards from his neck.

Chris smiled mischievously. “Not sure that counts as a blessing.”

Mark stopped and sat up, taking in the moment. “I’m gonna marry the shit out of you,” he declared.

“You know, you should probably wear the ring,” Chris said, holding up the box to him again. 

This proved too much for Mark as he started sobbing. “Yes please,” was all he managed to bring out. Chris took out the ring and put it on his finger while he still sniffed.

“And we should probably close the door,” Chris continued.

“Well, you are usually a bit loud,” Mark grinned.

“Only cause you make me,” Chris said, perfectly content with the next step in their life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist for this chapter](https://8tracks.com/aresiii/about-you-now)


End file.
